When The Towers Fell
by ParaCaerOuVoar
Summary: When the towers fell, the world was changed. Lives were lost, familes were torn apart, communities were crushed unrecognisably. Bonds were forged in the heat of panic, bonds unbreakable by time, distance or death.


This is for all the families who lost someone in 9/11, including my Godfather, whose best friend died in his arms in the ER.

A/N, Mac seems kinda OOC in this, but the way I see it, the guy was completely different before he lost his wife.

A/N2 Tissue warning for this.

-_-

_7:00 am._

_September 11__th__, 2001._

Prod.

Mac Taylor wrinkled his nose as something gently prodded him from his sleep.

Prod.

He wrinkled his nose again, before slowly opening one eye to glare at the offending finger. 'Must you do that?' he mumbled, before turning over, face down in the pillow.

'Stella's on the phone. You have a scene by the World Trade Centre. You can give me a lift to work.'

Mac rolled over again, looking at Claire sleepily. 'What time is it?'

'Seven. You woulda had to get up soon anyway, so go shower. I told Stel you would be there in twenty minutes.' Claire was kneeling on the bed next to him, fully dressed, make-up and hair perfect. He rolled out of the bed with a groan, his joints clicking as he stretched. I'm only forty, he thought, my joints shouldn't be clicking yet.

Yawning as he made his way over to the shower, he grabbed clean clothes from the open wardrobe, rubbing his face. He had got in at three this morning, and he had been looking forward to his day off. The warm water needling his back woke him up slightly, and by the time he had drunk his extra strong coffee, he wasn't feeling quite so zombie like.

They climbed into the car and set off for the World Trade Center, Claire fiddling with the radio idly, knowing it annoyed Mac. Finally she settled on a song, _Wake me up when September ends_, by Green Day** (1)**. Mac shook his head wearily; he would never understand his wife's strange taste in music.

-_-

Danny Messer opened his eyes blearily, glaring at his happily ringing alarm clock. He had forgotten to switch the damn thing off when he got the call that he could have the day off. Rolling over, he buried his face into the cushion and fell asleep almost instantaneously, not knowing he would be woken up only two hours later…

-_-

Donald Flack Jnr. was at the NYPD gym, running on the treadmill, a sheen of sweat gleaming on his face. Blocking out all the sounds except his feet smacking down on the treadmill underneath him, he didn't hear his phone ringing repeatedly until, at seven fifteen, he slowed down, getting the readout on the treadmill computer. Fifteen and a half miles in an hour and a quarter. He grinned, wiping his face with a towel and gulping down his bottle of water. Then his phone rang again, making him jump and water slopped down his t-shirt. As the cold hit his chest, he hissed, putting the sweaty shirt off as he made his way to the showers, answering his phone on the way. It was his immediate superior, Gavin Moran. 'Flack, get out of the goddamn gym, we got a scene, we're gonna meet the geeks there. You got fifteen minutes to shower and get your ass down to the precinct.' There was a click on the other end of the phone as Moran hung up on him.

Standing under the warm water, feeling his muscles loosen, he was struck with a sudden thought. Maybe Stella, the hot Greek CSI might be at the scene. He finished his shower, was in his uniform and out of the door in record time.

-_-

Sheldon Hawkes snored gently and kicked out in his sleep, throwing the quilt on the floor.

-_-

Aiden Burn was not happy. Her first murder scene, and she was directing traffic, fifty feet away from the body. Might as well be in Odessa, she thought to herself, waving the cars past. A gap in the almost constantly incessant traffic, gave her a break, and she looked up at the twin towers. They were an amazing sight when you were standing underneath them, a symbol of the great nation that was the USA.

Car horns tooting brought her attention back, and glancing up at the towers once again, she admired them for what they were. Majestic. They were New York City, and New York City was the towers. Destroying the towers would destroy the nations pride, and sense of safety. But those towers had been there since before Aiden was born, and they would still be standing when Aiden died.

-_-

_8:46 am_

Mac ran a hand through his hair. He had been processing the scene how over an hour, and he wasn't anywhere near finished. Picking up some miniscule trace, he looked over to the body, where Sheldon Hawkes, their new ME, was zipping up a body bag, struggling not to yawn. 'Page me when you get the results Doc!' he called, and Hawkes nodded, climbing in the coroner's van and heading off into the city. A shadow passed over him and he looked up. A plane was heading for the North Tower, and, with a deafening crash and billowing smoke, it crashed into the side, a shudder running down the building and through Mac. His mind went blank; his thoughts were centered on one thing, and one thing only. Claire. She was on the 50th floor, if the tower collapsed she would never get out in time.

His brain was telling him that this wasn't happening, it was an accident, everyone would be OK. It was just an accident. Even as he thought it, another plane roared overhead and hit the other tower. Time stood still. Smoke was pouring out of the buildings, and people from the lower floors were flooding out of the doors, straining their necks for people they knew, everyone praying that everyone else was OK.

A creak filled the air, and Mac looked up. The sides of the building were folding in on themselves. The towers were falling.

Claire…

-_-

Danny gave up on sleep and turned on the TV, reaching blindly for the remote. The news always depressed him, he heard about death all day at work, did he really want to come home to more death? But what the news was broadcasting made him freeze, blinking blearily at the TV screen. Something about the towers. A video playing in the background of the towers billowing smoke, then creaking and falling. His blood ran cold. He caught flashes of speech from the newsreader. 'Suspected terrorist attack… thousands of deaths… city looking for volunteers for emergency search and rescue…' Upon hearing that last phrase, Danny jumped out of bed, running for his clothes. If there was one thing he could do today, it was help people find closure.

-_-

Don saw the look of Mac's face at the towers fell. It was the look of a man who had lost everything in a split second. He didn't know the older man very well, but he respected him and his team, and he wanted the ex-marine to find closure from whoever he had lost as the symbol of the nation's pride disappeared from the New York skyline forever.

'Sir, I want to join search and rescue.' He approached his supervisor quietly; he seemed to be standing in a daze. When Flack spoke he jumped and shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

'Yeah, yeah, go ahead kid.'

That was all Flack needed. He disappeared into the crowd, following the other uniforms, detectives, CSI's and even civilians as they approached the smoking pile of rubble. God knows what they'd find there…

-_-

Hawkes was on the way out of the crime scene when he saw the towers fall.

'Shall I turn back?' asked the young assistant, fingered the wheel lightly.

Hawkes turned back and saw the chaos that had already formed. He made the hardest decision in his life, the one between heart and head. 'No, keep going. We're going to be needed in the morgue.' He said softly, and sighed as he watched the smoke disappear in the rear view mirror.

-_-

Aiden ducked around people, dodging people wandering in a daze. She didn't know what she was doing, but she knew she was going to the towers. She was going to help, any way she could. A shout dragged her back to reality. A rumpled looking Danny Messer jogged up behind her, his face solemn for once.

'What happened, Aiden? The news said that it was a suspected terrorist attack, but I saw the towers fall and I had to help and…' Danny's babbling slowed and trickled off as they came into view of the huge heap of rubble lying where the twin towers had stood only half an hour earlier.

Her eyes sparkled with tears for the lost. Danny reached for her hand, squeezing it lightly, reminding her that she wasn't alone in this. That she had to be strong for the families that needed hope.

-_-

_10:00am_

Mac didn't know how long he stood, staring at the space where the towers had been, his heart wrenching at the thought of Claire.

She was gone.

No, she wasn't, she got out, just in time.

She was on a coffee break.

She survived the fall, and being crushed by thousands of tons of building.

She was gone.

No matter what he said in his head, she was gone, but he couldn't accept it. He thought up a million scenarios in which she survived, each one more ridiculous than the last.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump. Stella Bonasera, his best friend outside of Claire, was standing beside him, talking quietly, but he couldn't hear her. All he could hear were his own tortured thoughts, replaying the fall over and over again, watching snippets of Claire's life flashing before him.

-_-

Danny wiped his brow, sweat dripping down his face and into his eyes. A feeble moan from a pile of stones in front had him shouting for help, and Aiden came running. She had long ago discarded her blue uniform shirt and was wearing just a white t-shirt that was grubby with sweat and dust. Her hair hung in strands from her once neat ponytail and her cheeks were red, but she pulled her weight, working as hard as, if not harder than the guys. Working together, they pulled a large, flat piece of granite off a body that quivered and whimpered. 'Hey guys! We got a live one!' Danny bellowed at a couple of paramedics making their way over with a stretcher. Upon hearing that, they quickened their pace and loaded the woman onto it.

'You're gonna be just fine Ma'am.' Danny reassured her before resuming digging in the dust and bricks. Beside him Aiden worked silently until suddenly she turned to him, a tear sliding down her cheek. 'Who would do something like this Danny?'

He didn't know what to say to that, so he settled for the truth. 'I don't know, Aiden.' He sighed, looking up at the blue sky. He was wondering that himself. Why the twin towers? Why not the white house? Or something else suitably political?

-_-

Don worked relentlessly, pulling numerous people from certain death, even though some of them were almost certainly going to die before they reached the ambulance. When he found his first dead body, he couldn't handle it. He fell apart. He knew what he looked like, a 6 ft 2 cop bawling his eyes out, but he didn't care. Someone should be crying for this loss. Why shouldn't it be him?

-_-

At 9:07 am, the first body arrived. And from that moment there was a steady stream of bodies. In a spare moment, Dr Sheldon Hawkes sat down on a table and put his head in his hands reflecting on how he had been happy when he woke up this morning. Seen the sun streaming in through his windows, the trees outside his apartment dappling the golden glow, giving in a green tint. Felt the cool autumn breeze on his dark skin as he stepped outside, ready to go to work. Heard the birds singing in the trees, for once not pigeons, but real birds, sparrows and blue tits. (2) Smelt the aroma of freshly cooked pastries floating out of his local coffee shop, his stomach rumbling in anticipation. Tasted the first mouthful of coffee, just the right amount of milk and sugar. September 11th should have been a good day.

-_-

Why?

Why would someone destroy the towers?

Aiden knew the answer, but she couldn't stop asking herself, asking Danny, asking the bodies they pulled from the rubble, some living, most already dead, battered and burned so badly they would never be identified. Working tirelessly for hours under the beating sun, the cool breeze that was present earlier in the day replaced by hot, thick air filled with dust, choking in her lungs.

Just because she knew the answer, didn't mean she could stop asking the question, because knowing wasn't the same as understanding.

Why?

-_-

**(1) **I know that the song wasn't actually released until 2005, but it fits.

**(2)** Not very likely, but it's my fic so ha!


End file.
